July 20, 2013

Three players will be limited, but Ware, Romo and Ratliff should be good to go

The Cowboys expect quarterback Tony Romo, defensive tackle Jay Ratliff and defensive end DeMarcus Ware to be fully cleared for the start of training camp practices Sunday. But they do expect three players to be limited.

Long snapper LP Ladouceur did not participate in the conditioning test Saturday, because of a calf injury. Offensive guards Nate Livings (foot) and Ron Leary (calf) also are out for the beginning of camp.

"We don’t think these are serious things," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. "We think they’re more day-to-day type things. So those are the only guys at the outset that we think might not be available to us as we start practice tomorrow. But again, we’ll monitor them, see how guys do on a day-to-day basis."

The Cowboys are coming off an injury-plagued 2012 season in which they lost five defensive starters for the season, had Ware playing with shoulder and elbow problems, had running back DeMarco Murray miss six games, had center Phil Costa miss 13 games and were without two key defensive reserves.

“Injuries are part of the National Football League, and I was proud of our football team and how, when an injury happened, the next guy stepped up and did their job and allowed us to compete and have a chance to win the division in Week 17 of the season," Garrett said. "So I think the mindset of our football team – really of our organization, too -- I thought our organization did a great job of bringing some veteran players in to fill some of those holes when we had some of those injuries. But certainly as a coaching staff, you’re always trying to address the injuries that you have on your football team. And there are certain things that, it’s hard to say ‘We could have done something about that,’ it’s just the nature of the league. These guys are big and strong guys that compete really hard on Sunday afternoons, and sometimes injuries happen. But we certainly try to look at every phase of our organization – our strength and conditioning program, some of the things we do in practice, nutrition, whatever those things are – to try and give ourselves and our players the best chance to stay healthy. We’ve done a lot of analysis on that, and hopefully some of that will show up and we can be a team that stays healthier throughout most of the season, because that’s certainly a big key to success.”